35. But my fault, you will
say, was this, that I did not restrain your accusers who were my
friends. Why, I had enough to do to answer their accusations against
myself; for they charged me with hypocrisy,32013201 See
the end of the letter of Pammachius and Oceanus; Jerome Letter
lxxxiii.
as I could shew by producing their letters, because I kept silence when
I knew you to be a heretic; and because by incautiously maintaining
peace with you, I fostered the intestine wars of the Church. You call
them my disciples; they suspect me of being your fellow-disciple; and,
because I was somewhat sparing in my rejection of your praises, they
think me to be initiated, along with you, into the mysteries of heresy.
This was the service your Prologue did me; you injured me more by
appearing as my friend than you would had you shewn yourself my enemy.
They had persuaded themselves once for all (whether rightly or wrongly
is their business) that you were a heretic. If I should determine to
defend you, I should only succeed in getting myself accused by them
along with you. They cast in my teeth your laudation of me, which they
suppose to have been written not in craft but sincerity; and they
vehemently reproach me with the very things which you always praised in
me. What am I to do? To turn my disciples into my accusers for your
sake? To receive on my own head the weapons which were hurled against
my friend?

3201 See
the end of the letter of Pammachius and Oceanus; Jerome Letter
lxxxiii.